Editor’s Note: This story by Bobby Cleveland was among the first he wrote for Mississippi Sportsman and Ms-sportsman.com, and it features Olympic medalist John Satterwhite, perhaps the most famous competitive shooter in Mississippi’s history. Satterwhite died Aug. 22, 2014 at the age of 71 from complications related to a stroke suffered earlier in the year.
A former skeet bronze medalist, Mississippi native John Satterwhite wasn’t surprised at team USA’s early shooting successes at the London Summer Olympics. He feels his country should dominate the shooting sports, and could always have enjoyed golden moments like those produced by Kimberly Rhodes (women’s skeet) and Vincent Hancock (men’s skeet) in these Games.
Satterwhite wasn’t referring to the USA’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, which cost him his best shot at gold when he was at the peak of his shooting game.
No, he was referring to the USA’s history of not providing support for its shooters and, for that matter, all of its Olympic athletes.
“I’ve seen scores of young shooters that could easily have been trained to become medalists, but were never given the opportunity,” said Satterwhite, born in Hattiesburg, raised in Tupelo and bronzed in Montreal in 1976. “The problem we have in this country is that we have historically not fostered programs that support shooters, or other athletes.
“I can go back to my international competitive career and I know the hardships that my teammates and I faced. We were shooting against teams like the Soviets and the Italians who were financed and supported by their countries. We were not.”
Satterwhite, who actually supported President Jimmy Carter’s decision to boycott Moscow, remembers some funny eye-opening events during his career that showed him the disadvantages he faced.
“I remember one time at an international meet in Europe, I had a conversation with the Soviet shooter, who I knew really well,” Satterwhite said. “He said, ‘Satterwhite, they tell me you have no coach.’ I told him that was true. He said, ‘Satterwhite, they tell me you have to buy your own shells.’ Again, I said he was right.
“Then he turned to me and said, ‘Satterwhite, let me ask you, do they not want you to win?’ That stuck with me.”
Years later, as Satterwhite continued to coach and train himself and buy his own shells — “and shoot 40 cents down range every time my right index finger quivered” — he was at another competition and found himself next to a Frenchman.
“We were shooting and his shells kept bouncing around his feet and everywhere, and I looked down and every shell had his name on it,” Satterwhite said. “His name was on every shell he shot. Now, do you not think he was getting support?”
Despite those obstacles, Satterwhite, who now heads the Mississippi Marksmanship Program for the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, was extremely successful. In the 70s, he was dominant in International Skeet, winning the U.S. championship four times and winning nine gold medals in international events, including doubles — individual and team — at the World Championships, where he set a world record, and at the Pan Am Games, both in 1979.
Amazingly, his Pan Am successes followed a two-year break from shooting.
“After the ’76 Olympics, I took a two-year break… I didn’t shoot at all,” he said. “I had a family to support, and shooting was expensive. It wasn’t like I was in a government supported program, like my Soviet friend and that French shooter.”
Satterwhite did eventually return to competition and the 1979 successes led to what could have been his biggest moment. At the peak of his shooting, the 1980 games in Moscow were on the horizon.
Trouble was, the Soviet Union had sent troops to Afghanistan in 1979 and President Carter, who feared the Soviets’ aim was to gain control of Middle East oil, wanted them out.
Satterwhite, who had been chosen to be the athlete advisor for USA’s shooting sports, was summoned to the White House in March 1980. On March 22, Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski met with all the athlete advisors hoping to gain the athletes’ support of the boycott.
“Brzezinski got up there and was telling us that the Soviets were over there killing people, and telling about all these atrocities the Soviets were inflicting on the Mujahideen, like backing a truck up into this village where they had separated the men and women into two groups,” Satterwhite said. “He said the Soviets opened the truck with this big machine gun and then shot and killed all the men. He said they just killed them all, moved in a piece of farm equipment and buried them, in front of the women.
“He said the women and children were screaming and crying and quoted one of the Soviets as telling them not to worry and it wasn’t so bad. They told them the good news was that the coming potato crop was going to be a good one.”
Satterwhite said that after the meeting, the advisors got together and were talking. There was division in the ranks but he knew the writing was on the wall. The Americans would not be going to Moscow if Carter said so, and Carter was adamant — the U.S. was not going to Moscow if Soviet forces were still in Afghanistan.
“When we voted, all the sports that involved any kind of tie to the military, like shooting, archery, fencing and martial arts, we all voted to support the boycott,” Satterwhite said. “I kind of felt like Sgt. Alvin York (Sergeant York) after he had shot all those Germans in World War I. Somebody asked him what he was thinking when he did it, and he said somebody needed ‘to do something to stop all that killing.’
“I just felt like if we could do something for those people in Afghanistan that would have a positive impact, we should do that. Somebody had to do something to stop all that killing.”
Regrets?
“No, not really, because in the years after that, as I represented Benelli shotguns, I had the opportunity to visit that region,” Satterwhite said. “I saw first hand the horrors inflicted upon them. There were so many people walking around with wooden legs and missing limbs.”
Satterwhite is bitter about the lack of support the U.S. has shown its athletes, at least those of his era. He marvels at how successful they were.
“You know the Soviets were first to realize the commitment needed to compete internationally,” he said. “They started subsidizing their Olympic athletes. They’d go to a guy and say, ‘you’re no longer a coal miner, you’re an athlete.’ They’d take the athlete and supply him, train him or her, and provide the means to support his or her family while they trained.
“Other countries picked up on that, especially the Chinese. We have come a long way here, too. But we could certainly do more. You don’t understand what it takes to compete at the world championhip or Olympic level. When you look at people like Rhodes and Hancock winning gold, you can bet they are getting some great support. Rhodes is getting great support from her family and Hancock from the military.”
“With gold medals, you can look and find a way to follow the money. People watching TV, the average American, doesn’t realize what all is involved. It is a full-time job to compete at that level.”
He said the average American has no clue.
“TV had this one deal that showed this little child jumping around and it talked about how the parents recognized that ability and took the child to a gymnastics school, which eventually led to the Olympics,” he said. “Hey, in Russia or China, the country has already picked up on those children and enrolled them in their programs.”
Satterwhite is deeply troubled by the lack of respect the shooting sports receive, even when they produced the first gold medals for the USA early in the Olympics.
“The media does not like to give coverage to any sport that involves guns,” he said. “They had to give it some this year because the skeet golds came so early, but you didn’t see much of it on TV.
“I guess some things never will change.”
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